Cornell researchers believe that these different electrical signals are the fishes' first step in diverging into separate species.
Water has Memory. The Borg of the Microbes Takes Up . . . Farming?
You are witnessing one of nature's most incredible migrations that never gets shown on the Discovery Channel.

Believe it or not, each one of those little dots is a solitary amoeba. But not for long. Note: This post contains a prize inside!
Relativity of Electric and Magnetic Fields. Previous home next PDF Michael Fowler, University of Virginia A Magnetic Puzzle…

As Chandra expands the realm of the known, it continues to raise new questions and point the way for future exploration. This photo blog presents some of Chandra's most spectacular images in a large and shareable format. Follow Chandra on Twitter 10 Apr 2014. Symphony of Science. Beautiful Universe. Developmental Cell - Aberrant Epigenetic Landscape in Cancer: How Cellular Identity Goes Awry. Researchers discover molecular determinant of cell identity. Steve Fisch Howard Chang and his team have discovered how cells decide which proteins they will tend to produce.

If a big bunch of your brain cells suddenly went rogue and decided to become fat cells, it could cloud your decision-making capacity a bit. Fortunately, early in an organism’s development, cells make firm and more-or-less permanent decisions about whether they will live their lives as, say, skin cells, brain cells or, well, fat cells. Those decisions essentially boil down to which proteins, among all the possible candidates encoded in a cell’s genes, the cell will tend to make under ordinary circumstances. But exactly how a cell chooses its default protein selections from an overwhelmingly diverse genetic menu is somewhat mysterious. A new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine may help solve the mystery. Howard Chang, MD, PhD, associate professor of dermatology, is the senior author of the study, published online March 20 in Nature.

Breakthrough of the Year: Bridging the Quantum and the Classical Worlds. Quantum mechanics lays out a set of mind-bending rules on how very small things move and behave, such as their ability to absorb energy only in discrete amounts (or quanta) and be in two different states at the same time.

Although, so far, quantum effects have been observed primarily in molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles, physicists have been putting much effort into observing quantum mechanics in systems closer to human scale.
Universcale. Nature by Numbers on Vimeo. Langton's ant. Langton's ant after 11000 steps.

A red pixel shows the ant's location. Langton's ant is a two-dimensional Turing machine with a very simple set of rules but complicated emergent behavior. It was invented by Chris Langton in 1986 and runs on a square lattice of black and white cells.[1] The universality of Langton's ant was proven in 2000.[2] The idea has been generalized in several different ways, such as turmites which add more colors and more states. Rules[edit] Animation of first 200 steps of Langton's ant Squares on a plane are colored variously either black or white. At a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color of the square, move forward one unitAt a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit Modes of behavior[edit] These simple rules lead to complex behavior.

With the global population increasing by 80 million each year, a third of the planet will likely face water shortages by 2025. This looming water crisis is inextricably linked to food production because agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all fresh water used, and obtaining irrigation water in arid regions has serious environmental impacts. Drilling wells can deplete groundwater, and desalination is energy-intensive and leaves behind concentrated brine.
Natural selection. Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything. 25 Awe-Inspiring Science Talks on TED. The natural world is an amazing thing, and despite the volumes upon volumes that we know about it, we’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to truly understanding our universe and the things within it.

Yet just because there’s so much information out there doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to learn as much as you can about science. These lectures reflect information that’s at the cutting edge, from medical discoveries that could change lives to astrophysical research that’s expanding our knowledge of the worlds that lie beyond our own galaxy, and they can help you get an education in some of the greatest wonders the scientific fields have to offer. Humans. Primates expect others to act rationally. Justin Wood Rhesus macaques were one of the three types of primates that responded to an experimenter’s actions. When trying to understand someone’s intentions, nonhuman primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University.

The findings appear in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Science. The work was led by Justin Wood, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), with David Glynn, a research assistant, and Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard, along with Brenda Phillips of Boston University.

Scientists may have found a new state of matter. First frictionless superfluid molecules created. Amoebas show primitive farming behaviour as they travel. 19 January 2011Last updated at 19:00 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News. Curious Whales Check Out Photographers with Stunning Results.